On Saturday, October 24, as part of the Health Live @ Seniors Today series, leading ENT specialist Dr. Samir K Bhargava addressed concerns around ENT care and hearing in senior citizens. Dr. Bhargava is the National President of the Association of Otolaryngologists of India (AOI) for the year 2020.
Dr. Bhargava is currently a Professor at HBT Medical College, Mumbai, and the Dr. R N Cooper Hospital, Mumbai, and a Consultant at the Hinduja Hospital, Khar, Mumbai.
He has been a Gold Medalist for securing the first rank at both MS (ENT) and DORL exams in the year 1991 from Mumbai. An award-winning student, he has done his MS ENT from the KEM Hospital Mumbai and DLO from the Royal College of Surgeons, London.
He has been invited faculty at more than 70 live surgical and cadaveric workshops all over the country since 1996 and has been a guest speaker and panelist at several conferences and workshops. He has authored books, presented papers, and been featured amongst Mumbai’s top doctors by India Today magazine in 2019 and 2020. He has been an active Rotarian.
Hearing impairment is a serious but grossly neglected condition in India. Children who are born with severe deafness are unable to develop speech and communicate with people. Over 1 lakh babies every year are born with severe deafness and hearing deficiency in India.
To commemorate the International Week of Deaf people, Alia Bhatt, Shreya Ghoshal, and R Madhavan join hands with Dr. Samir Bhargava, National President of The Association of Otolaryngologists of India to create this video on Newborn Hearing Screening to create awareness amongst the public regarding the urgent need to check the hearing of Newborns so that if we identify the problem early we can take early steps to get the child into the mainstream and become independent.
Professor in HBT Medical College and Consultant at Hinduja Healthcare Hospital Dr. Samir Bhargava explained what causes Mucormycosis or ‘Black Fungus’ and talks about the importance to control the fungal infection at an early stage.
Dr. Bhargava said, “COVID-19 has been in center stage for the last more than one year but, in the last two to three weeks, we have been hearing of an infection by the name of Mucormycosis or ‘Black Fungus’. Friends, Mucormycosis is an opportunistic fungal infection. Fungal spores are all over the place, it could be in the soil, construction sites, AC ducts, but, if your immunity is good then you will not get this infection.”
He added, “In COVID, the immunity does go down, and we know now that steroids are the ones that can help the patients to recover, but if the patient also has diabetes, then this is a trio of coronavirus, with sugar, with steroids. These opportunistic infections sometimes are leading to this infection called Mucormycosis. It is very important that the sugar be maintained correctly.”
“The dose of steroids that are been given judiciously, which means the correct dose, the correct time, and the correct judiciary. Today, we also need to give sometimes Immunomodulatory medicines. If good sugar control is maintained, then these opportunistic infections would not come up. Even after you are discharged, whether it be from a mild infection or severe infection. It is very important that when you go home, you maintain your sugar levels well. It should not go up beyond 200. Also, please keep a close watch on some of these that I have mentioned,” he further said.
Talking of the medical help and medication process, Dr. Bhargava explained, “If you develop fever or dryness in the nose or sometimes discharge from the nose, numbness in the cheek, pain in the eye, or loosening of the teeth, you must immediately contact your local physicians or the DNG doctors and some immediate studies like CT Scan or MRI to determine if there is any such infection. If there is an infection then some anti-fungal medications like Amphotericin B and some surgeries to remove the dead tissue will be required. It is important to control the infection at the early stages before it can reach the eye or the brain. “
“𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐟𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞.” – 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧 𝐊𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫
That is the importance of hearing and the impact it can have in our lives. However, due to lack of awareness, many cases of hearing loss go undetected.
According to the World Health Organization, approximately 466 million people have hearing loss i.e. about 5% of the world’s population. And it is estimated by 2050 over 900 million people — or one in every ten people will have disabling hearing loss.
The guest for my show is a renowned expert in the field of hearing loss and deafness. Dr. Samir Bhargava is a leading ENT specialist and currently a Professor at HBT Medical College and Dr.R.N.Cooper Hospital Mumbai.
Through our conversation, we delve into various topics relating to degrees of hearing loss, external triggers that cause deafness and ways to prevent and cure deafness.
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